Rituparna Sengupta starrer ‘Mukti’ premieres at Priya Cinema Hall on the day of Mahalaya 2013

Premiere of Director Reshmi Mitra’s latest release “Mukti” was held in Priya cinema on October 4, 2013. Though the premiere was not that well attended, particularly by her contemporary film makers or eminent producers but still the presences of few veteran actresses of Tollywood made the premiere gathering quite an interesting platform to relive our nostalgic heritage. After a long time, you could see actresses like Shreela Majumder, Ratna Ghoshal (though both of them have acted in the movie too), Lalita Chatterjee (ex leading lady of Mahanayak Uttam Kumar who has also acted in then Bombay Film Industry with superstars like Rajesh Khanna, Pran etc).

The premiere press meet was anchored by an eminent & veteran All India Radio & Doordarshan announcer and newsreader Mr. Debashish Basu. He introduced Director Reshmi Sen to the audiences & media representatives present in the Priya Cinema Hall and Director Reshmi Mitra then introduced her cast & crew.

The anti-heroine of the movie Monami Ghosh looked both sweet & sexy at the same time in her green western outfit. She was very friendly with the media representatives, covering the premiere and patiently answered all their questions. After quite a long interval, Monami has once again acted on the big screen and this time in a negative character. She briefed the press that she found the character of ‘Ranita’ quite challenging and totally opposite of her small screen images in Binni Dhaner Khoi or the ongoing mega serial in ETV Bangla “Hiyar Majhe”.

Ratna Ghosal said that it’s been a pleasure to work with Reshmi Mitra as being a woman herself, she understands & can read the feminine psychology much better than any male director. She even equated the analytic skills of Reshmi with Rina (Aparna Sen).

Shreela Majumder also said identical words about Director Reshmi Mitra. To her, Reshmi is extremely gifted as a filmmaker and she must concentrate on making more urban films like “Mukti” instead of directing hardcore commercial/mainstream ‘masala’ movies like “Macho Mastana”.

Actress Ankita Majumder has also played a pivotal character in Mukti. Being a very popular leading lady of Bengali Television Daily Soaps, this is Ankita Majumder’s second big screen appearance after making her Bangla cinema debut with Arindam Dey’s children’s film “Goyenda Gogol” which was released early this year. Ankita seemed to be very satisfied with her characterization in ‘Mukti’ & she has also felt that Director Reshmi Mitra has dealt with a sensitive subject and it definitely needs courage to deal with such a delicate plot and eventually make a Tollywood Bengali movie out of it.

Producer Santu Samaddar said that this is his very first movie as the producer and loved the experience of working with Reshmi Mitra. Mr. Samaddar also stated that he was very impressed with the maturity of the plot, when Reshmi first narrated him the story outline.

Music Director of ‘Mukti’, Mr. Raja Narayan Deb opined that Reshmi has given him an absolute creative liberty in terms of experimentation while composing the songs for the movie. He did not want to speak more about the songs and said that ‘audience is the best judge”.

The Heroine of the film and star attraction of the Premiere show Ms.Rituparna Sengupta entered Priya Cinema much later as she got stuck in the Durga puja shopping Traffic jam in Gariahat crossing. Rituparna patiently posed for all the media photographers eagerly waiting for her with her electrifying smile. She said that its time for her to do more of meatier, bolder and experimental characters as she has reached that stage of her career, from where she can take a lot of risks in terms of selecting scripts, directors and characters for herself.

The male lead of Reshmi’s last film “Macho Mastana”, the Tollywood Hero ‘Hiran’ also attended the premiere to wish her all the luck for ‘Mukti’. But the most interesting part was both the leading men of ‘Mukti’, Silajit Majumder (Singer & Actor) and Rajdeep Dutta were strangely missing.

Sanjib Banerji takes a keen interest in both Old and Contemporary/modern Bengali literature and cinema and have written several short stories for Bengali Little magazines. He also runs a little magazine in Bangla, named – Haat Nispish, which has completed its 6th consecutive year in the last Kolkata International Book Fair. Being the eldest grandson of Late Sukumar Bandopadhaya, who was the owner of HNC Productions and an eminent film producer cum distributor of his time (made platinum blockbusters with Uttam Kumar, like “Prithibi Aamarey Chaaye”, “Indrani” and several others), Sanjib always nurtured an inherent aspiration of making it big and worthy in the reel arena. He has already written few screenplays for ETV BANGLA.
Sanjib can be reached at sanjib@sholoanabangaliana.com